Shadow on the Mountain

Shadow on the Mountain recounts the adventures of a 14-year-old Norwegian boy named Espen during World War II. After Nazi Germany invades and occupies Norway, Espen and his friends are swept up in the Norwegian resistance movement. Espen gets his start by delivering illegal newspapers, then graduates to the role of courier, and finally becomes a spy, dodging the Gestapo along the way. During five years under the Nazi regime, he gains - and loses - friends, falls in love, and makes one small mistake that threatens to catch up with him as he sets out to escape on skis over the mountains to Sweden.

The Bamboo Sword

Set in 1853 in Japan, this novel follows Yoshi, a Japanese boy who dreams of someday becoming a samurai. Unfortunately, as part of the serving class, Yoshi can never become a warrior. He is taken up by Manjiro, the protagonist of Preus' Heart of a Samurai, and becomes his servant and secret watchdog. Meanwhile, Commodore Matthew Perry and his USS Susquehanna squadron of steamships arrive in Edo Bay....

The Shakespeare Stealer

Widge is an orphan with a rare talent for shorthand. His fearsome master has just one demand: steal Shakespeare's play "Hamlet" - or else. Widge has no choice but to follow orders, so he works his way into the heart of the Globe Theatre, where Shakespeare's players perform.

War Horse

In 1914, a beautiful foal with a distinctive cross on his nose is sold to the Army and thrust into the midst of the war on the Western front. But his heart aches for Albert, the farmer's son he left behind. Will he ever see his true master again?

The Bronze Bow

As a young boy, 18-year-old Daniel witnessed his father’s crucifixion at the hands of the Romans. Consumed by hate, his one desire is to drive the legions from Israel. But as he works with a band of outlaws using guerrilla tactics, he also begins to pay attention to the teachings of a wandering rabbi from a nearby town. Caught between his desire for revenge and the demands of his family, Daniel goes repeatedly to hear Jesus preach. Each time he leaves disappointed that Jesus doesn’t take a stand against the Romans. Will Daniel learn to heed the message of forgiveness before his violent lifestyle leads to disaster?

Ember Falls: The Green Ember Series, Book 2

The stage is set. It's war. Morbin Blackhawk, slaver and tyrant, threatens to destroy the rabbit resistance forever. Heather and Picket are two young rabbits improbably thrust into pivotal roles. The fragile alliance forged around the young heir seems certain to fail. Can Heather and Picket help rescue the cause from a certain, sudden defeat?

Out of My Mind

Melody is not like most people. She cannot walk or talk, but she has a photographic memory; she can remember every detail of everything she has ever experienced. She is smarter than most of the adults who try to diagnose her and smarter than her classmates in her integrated classroom - the very same classmates who dismiss her as mentally challenged because she cannot tell them otherwise. But Melody refuses to be defined by cerebral palsy.

Samurai Rising: The Epic Life of Minamoto Yoshitsune

Minamoto Yoshitsune should not have been a samurai. But his story is legend in this real-life saga. This epic warrior tale may sound like a novel, but this is the true story of the greatest samurai in Japanese history. When Yoshitsune was just a baby, his father went to war with a rival samurai family - and lost. His father was killed, his mother captured, and his surviving half-brother banished. Yoshitsune was sent away to live in a monastery. Skinny, small, and unskilled in the warrior arts, he nevertheless escaped and learned the ways of the samurai.

The War That Saved My Life

Nine-year-old Ada has never left her one-room apartment. Her mother is too humiliated by Ada's twisted foot to let her outside. So when her little brother Jamie is shipped out of London to escape the war, Ada doesn't waste a minute - she sneaks out to join him. So begins a new adventure of Ada, and for Susan Smith, the woman who is forced to take the two kids in. As Ada teaches herself to ride a pony, learns to read, and watches for German spies, she begins to trust Susan.

One Crazy Summer

Eleven-year-old Delphine and her younger sisters Vonetta and Fern travel to Oakland to meet their mother, Cecil, who abandoned their family years earlier. But even when Cecil gets them to her house, she shows no interest and seems to view them as nothing but a nuisance.

Yamada Monogatari: Demon Hunter

In an ancient Japan where the incursions of gods, ghosts, and demons into the living world is an everyday event, an impoverished nobleman named Yamada no Goji makes his living as a demon hunter for hire. With the occasional assistance of the reprobate exorcist Kenji, whatever the difficulty - ogres, demons, fox-spirits - for a price Yamada will do what needs to be done, even and especially if the solution to the problem isn’t as simple as the edge of a sword.

Fuzzy Mud

Fifth-grader Tamaya Dhilwaddi and seventh-grader Marshall Walsh have been walking to and from Woodridge Academy together since elementary school. But their routine is disrupted when bully Chad Hilligas challenges Marshall to a fight. To avoid the conflict, Marshall takes a shortcut home through the off-limits woods. Tamaya, unaware of the reason for the detour, reluctantly follows. They soon get lost. And then they find trouble - bigger trouble than anyone could ever have imagined.

Crispin: The Cross of Lead

In the small 14th-century English village where he has lived his entire life, the boy has grown up with no name of his own, known only as "Asta's son". But when his mother dies, the boy receives both his rightful name, Crispin, and a lead cross, inscribed with a secret that soon has him fleeing for his life.

Bomb: The Race to Build - and Steal - the World's Most Dangerous Weapon

In December of 1938, a chemist in a German laboratory made a shocking discovery: When placed next to radioactive material, a Uranium atom split in two. That simple discovery launched a scientific race that spanned three continents. This is the story of the plotting, the risk-taking, the deceit, and genius that created the world's most formidable weapon. This is the story of the atomic bomb.

Johnny Tremain

Johnny, a young apprentice silversmith, is caught with Otis, Hancock, and John and Samuel Adams in the exciting operations and subterfuges leading up to the Boston Tea Party and the Battle of Lexington. As Johnny is forced into the role of a full-grown man in the face of his new country's independence, he finds that his relations with those he loves changes for the better as well.

Training the Samurai Mind: A Bushido Sourcebook

Training the Samurai Mind gives an insider's view of the samurai world: the moral and psychological development of the warrior, the ethical standards they were meant to uphold, their training in both martial arts and strategy, and the enormous role that the traditions of Shintoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism had in influencing samurai ideals.

The One and Only Ivan

Ivan is an easygoing gorilla. Living at the Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade, he has grown accustomed to humans watching him through the glass walls of his domain. He rarely misses his life in the jungle. In fact, he hardly ever thinks about it at all. Instead, Ivan thinks about TV shows he's seen and about his friends Stella, an elderly elephant, and Bob, a stray dog. But mostly Ivan thinks about art and how to capture the taste of a mango or the sound of leaves with color and a well-placed line.

The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg

Through a series of fascinating events, Homer's older brother has been illegally sold to the Union Army. It is up to Homer to find him and save him. Along the way, he encounters strange but real people of that era: two tricksters who steal his money, a snake-oil salesman, a hot-air balloonist, and finally, the Maine regiment who saved Little Round Top at the Battle of Gettysburg and won the war for the Union.

Breaking Stalin's Nose

Celebrated artist and author Eugene Yelchin drew on his own experience growing up in Soviet Russia to pen this Newbery Honor Book. Breaking Stalin’s Nose follows 10-year-old Sasha Zaichik, who wants nothing more than to be a Young Pioneer in Stalin’s Communist Party. But when his father, a member of the State Security police, is arrested the night before the Young Pioneer ceremony, Sasha is left to re-evaluate everything he’s been taught about Stalin and what it truly means to be a good comrade.

The Crossover

"With a bolt of lightning on my kicks... The court is SIZZLING. My sweat is DRIZZLING. Stop all that quivering. Cuz tonight I'm delivering," announces dreadlocked 12-year old Josh Bell. He and his twin brother, Jordan, are awesome on the court. But Josh has more than basketball in his blood. He's got mad beats, too, that tell his family's story in verse in this fast and furious middle grade novel of family and brotherhood from Kwame Alexander.

Brown Girl Dreaming

Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a child's soul as she searches for her place in the world.

Hatchet

Newbery Award-winner Gary Paulsen's best-known book comes to audio in this breathless, heart-gripping drama about a boy pitted against the wilderness with only a hatchet and a will to live. On his way to visit his recently divorced father in the Canadian mountains, thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson is the only survivor when the single-engine plane crashes. His body battered, his clothes in shreds, Brian must now stay alive in the boundless Canadian wilderness.

Teacher / music lover / book lover says:"Survival Story for Grades 5 or 6 through 8."

Chains

Freedom. In 1776 New England, that word is on everyone's lips. But for 13-year-old Isabel the word holds a different meaning, especially after the only mistress she has ever known dies, and instead of receiving the freedom promised, she and her sister are sold to the Locktons, a wealthy New York family. In a matter of hours Isabel has to leave Rhode Island for the hustle and bustle of colonial New York City - a community divided and caught up in the American colonies struggle for independence.

Publisher's Summary

Praised as “a timeless tale” by Booklist in a starred review, this Newbery Honor book by Margi Preus explores the cultural divide between the East and West circa 1841. When Manjiro, a Japanese teenager, is thrown from his fishing boat during a storm, he’s rescued by an American whaling ship. Befriending the ship’s captain, Manjiro decides to travel with the crew to Massachusetts. But years later, when Manjiro attempts to return to his homeland, he’s imprisoned as an outsider.

What do Moby Dick and Edo-era Japan have in common and why should you care? The two eras overlap in the incredibly well-written and engulfing story by Margi Preus, Heart of A Samurai.

The story opens in the mid 1800’s. Manjiro is a young fisherman whose boat is wrecked somewhere off the coast of Japan. At the time, Japan was a fully closed society. Citizens had no contact with other nations, and if they did, they’d be excommunicated and banned from returning.

Stuck on a rock with little food and water, Manjiro and his mates are discovered by a whaling boat from New Bedford, Massachusetts. They spend several months on this boat as men on whaling hunts (a la Moby Dick).

Who was your favorite character and why?

Manjiro is the sole member of the Japanese fishing team who learns English. Despite the fact that his culture has taught him to think of Westerners as devils, he begins to believe in the American Dream and chooses to go back with the whalers to Massachusetts when the others are dropped off in the Sandwich Islands (known now as Hawaii).

Any additional comments?

Heart of A Samuari is about the tug-of-war between following one's dreams, while yearning for the security. This is the classic crisis that all children can relate to: who doesn't want to be themselves, follow their desires, and to uncharted territories—while also wanting the comforts of family and familiar customs. Which one should you choose when you can only choose one?

This story is well written and engulfing and provides realistic historical references as well.

Where does Heart of a Samurai rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Excellent.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Manjiro is my favorite character. Manjiro holds on to his culture, draws from his past experiences, knowledge of what he knows is right and wrong, while looking for guidance from his elders. Manjiro is a positive role model demonstrating patience, adaptability, intelligence, and maturity. He is a curious boy, who appreciates education and is not afraid to work hard.

Which character – as performed by James Yaegashi – was your favorite?

Mr. Yaegashi performed wonderfully in all characters. I particularly liked how he performed the Japanese language parts.

Any additional comments?

Perfect book for school and classroom readings because it touches on poverty, Japanese history, american history, the gold rush, American and Japanese prejudice, and ties it all together with samurai lessons that make the foundation of Manjiro's character.